This is what all those little things on my desk became–a toy bag for little people. It’s up in the shop along with another toy bag (puzzles) and there are more on their way.  This week was making stuff for the shop week and though I’m pretty excited about this new design, not much more than that got done.  I only ventured down in my studio about half of the evenings I was supposed to–I’m a crappy boss to myself I guess.  But there are somethings cut out for the shop that I really want to finish (city skirts and county skirts too!), so I’m just going to keep at it next week. After that we’ll be off to the middle of nowhere on vacation. A whole week! without the internet! I’m guessing there will be cable in the cabin so that kind of evens out the time suck factor. There will also be an enormous lake so I’m not expecting to get much done, but that is the point of vacation anyway isn’t it?

on my desk. wednesday.

This was supposed to be the fourth moustachioed plush (the others are here) but I just can’t decide if I like it or not.  It was definitely a pain in the butt to make. It took forever to try to make the face at least a little three dimensional and after I gave up I realized how I should have done it (though now I forget) and then all the fussy cuts.  He does have a little body that’s done and his legs are in pieces, but I just don’t know if it’s worth it to put him together. His face is so flat that it reminds me of a tiki doll. The moustache helps–it’s a bushy Tom Selleck number–but I still don’t know. What do you think? Should I sew him up and put him in the shop or scrap it and start over?

just one more and then kid clothes week is over for reals. I think the skirt was actually the first thing I finished, but I ran out of double sided fusible interfacing and it took me a few weeks to get my butt to the fabric store for more.  First I drew a skyline without any reference and it was pretty sad, so I looked up skyline on flickr and ta da! There’s a little New York, a little Shanghai, and a little Cleveland on this skirt and maybe some Chicago on the back.

I’m thinking about selling a few of these in my shop, maybe doing a county version too.  I still have no idea how to size a pattern (anyone? anyone?) but I’m confident I can wing it. Next week is making stuff for the shop week, so we’ll see. I put a few things up (have a look!) but there are many diggers to make, so I don’t know if I’ll even get to the skirts. Hope everyone had a good weekend. I’m off to have cocktails and listen to some french gypsy music with my best pal.

When I made a plan to just sew one kind of thing for a week, it was a good plan and I should have stuck to it. I completely lost my momentum and now it’s just a chore to go down in my studio.  Sewing from actual patterns didn’t help.  Everything was going fine and then suddenly:  step 12. put in zipper or step 7. sew continuous lap.  I still need a little hand holding when it comes to zippers (and who the hell wrote the instructions on the zipper package anyway? because they’re crap) and they could at least define continuous lap even if they’re not going to tell me how to do it.  I did figure them both out (thank you internet) but they are definitely a little off. A continuous lap is where the buttons are in the cuff of your sleeve, if you’d like to know.  You cut a slit in your fabric and then sew a piece of fabric to it in order to hem it, but not make it any smaller.  That’s very confusing, sorry–maybe that’s why they didn’t explain it in the instructions. Anyway, it’s on the back where the buttons go on this striped jumper.  The striped jumper that’s too big. Oh well, at least it’ll fit for sure next summer. I just can’t figure out sizing with patterns. I measured her and picked the size that matched, but I guess it just runs big, like one size too big.  The same thing happened with the other pattern I made.

But this is heavier than I expected–Joann’s linen is not the finest quality, duh–so it might work well as a fall jumper.  I haven’t hemmed it yet because I can’t decide whether or not to use the striped fabric I used on the collar and armholes or just fold it up and hem it.  If I use the striped fabric do you think I need to make bias tape, or can I just cut it straight?

So I have a few things to finish up this week for my kids and other people kids, but next week I’m moving on whether I’m done or not.  But when I do get back to sewing kid’s clothes I’d like to be able to sell some, but I don’t have the foggiest idea how to size them.  Does anyone have any good resources about this?

*edited to add*  both the patterns I got at a thrift store, so I don’t know if they still sell them, but the striped number is Simplicity 6500 and the one with ruffles is Butterick 6089.